On Anger and Forgiveness

On Anger and Forgiveness

　

　

Anger and Forgiveness is a book by the Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum. Nussbaum is prolific and has written many books, most on the subject of ethics. She is, however, a classical scholar and, reading her clearly written if sometimes sophistic expository prose, you have the sense that her books are written for the market that made Alan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind a best-seller. Bloom’s book was essentially a study of certain subjects central to classical philosophy stitched to a flame-thrower introduction. (In turn, this book’s model was Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, another surprise bestseller comprised of the author’s extravagantly ambitious but studious Ph.d thesis prefaced with an intentionally provocative and politically incorrect introduction.) Nussbaum is too staid and conservative to begin her effectively argued, if somewhat colorless books, with a provocative Nietzschean foreword. But this shouldn’t be necessary – generally, her books address issues in contemporary society that are vitally important. Anger and Forgiveness is Nussbaum’s prescription for how victims of injustice should respond to their oppressors. In an era of much-publicized police shootings, protests and violent counter-protests, the book couldn’t be more timely.

Nussbaum is an Aristotelian and her book follows the model of her master’s Nicomachean Ethics. She treats her subject encyclopedically and studies the problem from all possible angles. Characteristically, she finds problems in her own arguments that a casual reader would not notice and, then, addresses them, a mode of discourse that leads to some tedium. As with Aristotle, Nussbaum begins with analysis of what it feels like to angry, how anger works, and what the emotion anger desires. This mode of analysis feels phenomenological – as in Aristotle, Nussbaum implicitly asks her readers to test her suppositions against their own experience and emotions. She, then, consults literature (and other arts) to locate representations of the emotion under consideration. Finally, she reasons about the emotion and its consequences, drily identifying remedies for adverse or problematic aspects of the emotion. She draws ethical conclusions from her work and is not afraid to render advice. In some respects, her treatise Anger and Forgiveness resembles a self-help book. Similarly, she is not too proud to cite as authorities actual self-help books, for instance Helen Lerner’s The Dance of Anger, a text that plays a key role in her analysis of anger arising in intimate relationships.

The methodology yields insights that are highly persuasive. Nussbaum generally doesn’t surprise and most of her prescriptions are predictable. This is because her common sense approach eschews paradox, the typical dialectic method used by Continental thinkers like Derrida and Slavoj Zizek. Nussbaum’s common sense and practical analysis isn’t exciting and ends up showing you that what you intuitively believed is, indeed, rationally correct. There’s none of the buzz you get reading someone like Michel Foucault, a writer that she frequently cites – but, on the other hand, most of what she tells you seems true whereas Foucault is often palpably misguided, too willing to sacrifice truth for a clever phrase or ornate argument.

So what is anger? Nussbaum proposes that the emotion arises from the perception that a person has suffered a wrong. The wrong is perceived as unjust because it reduces a person’s status; the victim is "down-graded" by the harm inflicted upon them – in this assessment, Nussbaum follows Aristotle. Wrongs that induce anger are, in effect, insults. Anger is sometimes useful in moving a person to respond to an unjust insult. But, Nussbaum generally rejects the notion that "righteous indignation" or anger has salutary effects. Her approach controverts the ideas advanced by some therapists and political theorists who urge that anger is empowering and, therefore, beneficial. Rather, Nussbaum argues that anger can’t be empowering because it is directed toward an event in the past – by definition, we have no control over the past and being angry is really a species of resentment toward what we can not control. In her estimation, anger is acceptable only to the extent that it propels us forward to a relationship with the wrongdoer that is not based on anger.

Nussbaum’s classical background is central to her argument. She notes that Aeschylus describes the gods as taming the Furies. The Furies, which seem to embody the lex talionis ("eye for an eye"), were described by the Greeks as originally terrifying and monstrous beings, creatures akin to rabid dogs lapping up the blood of their victims. But the social contract, sanctified by the Olympians, has domesticated the Furies – they are now the Eumenides, that is, the "kindly ones" that guide men and women toward justice and peace. Nussbaum perceives this transformation as arising from the rejection of the logic of retribution and punishment, a refutation of the blood feud that was the animus of the so-called heroic age, the age of the Iliad and Beowulf, but, also, the epoch of justified murder. Aeschylus’ Eumenides are gentle in that they urge us to forgive our enemies.

So what is forgiveness and how should it be implemented? Nussbaum initially addresses models of forgiveness that are "transactional". (In her parlance, "transactional" is perjorative in comparison with the more enlightened concept of "transitional" forgiveness.) "Transactional" forgiveness is a kind of quid pro quo – the wrongdoer must demonstrate contrition, must apologize, and must, then, take action to show that these measures are "sincere." The problem with "transactional" forgiveness is that it is "contingent" or "conditional" and, therefore, directed toward the wrongdoer. But, everyone knows that no one’s apology is ever really sincere – this is because we can always justify our wrongful acts in terms of their social and psychological causation: if you had felt the rage that consumed me, you would have acted similarly; if you had been raised in poverty without hope, you would have been inspired to bad acts as well. Thus, it is almost impossible for a person to apologize sincerely and if "sincerity" is necessary before forgiveness is extended, then, virtually no one will be forgiven. Furthermore, "transactional" forgiveness focuses too much on the wrongdoer and, therefore, the wrong – an event that is trapped in a past that we can’t change. Obsession with the past and the wrongdoer doesn’t move us forward; it doesn’t guide us to a better, restored relationship with the person who has injured us.

"Transactional" forgiveness is central to many religious traditions and insisted upon by many therapists and counselors. In the Christian tradition, forgiveness is conditioned on true repentance, confession, and action that repairs the wrongful deed. This is similar to the Judaic notion of "Teshuvah" – if the sinner does the appropriate thing, the person who has been wronged is obligated to forgive. Withholding forgiveness is not an option. Thus, the concept of forgiveness can be turned on its head as a coercive force imposed upon the victim of harm. Furthermore, forgiveness can easily slide into punishment and an impulse to humiliate and shame the wrongdoer – this is also counterproductive and mires both parties in "dance of anger", a minuet revolving around something irreparable in the past.

Against this model, Nussbaum asserts that forgiveness should be "transitional" – it’s objective is to liberate the person who has been wronged from anger and allow restoration of a relationship between victim and victimizer. The purpose of forgiveness is not to enforce reparations based on the past but to secure a harmonious and peaceful future that transcends the concepts of revenge, retribution, or punishment. Nussbaum’s recommendations are wise and temperate – a person who has been wronged should forego anger; that person should proceed on the basis of a "gentle and playful disposition" – the term "playful," in this context means not taking oneself or one’s claims for justice too seriously. (Nussbaum cites several endearing examples of this kind of disposition as shown by Nelson Mandela.) Finally, the person who has been wronged should aspire to "unconditional love" toward the wrongdoer in cases where the relationship in intimate or so important that it must be preserved. This aspiration is difficult in practice and probably nearly impossible to achieve – but holding fast to this aspiration can not do any harm.

Of course, this model is one of the messages in the Gospel, but one that the institutional Church, with its elaborate rituals of confession, penance, and absolution has chosen to ignore. As Nietzsche and Kierkegaard have shown, the institutional church is the entity that is, perhaps, the quickest to dismiss the gospel and Jesus’ uncompromising ethic expressed in those writings. In this regard Nussbaum cites the story of the prodigal son. She notes that the father in that parable exercises unconditional love. Nussbaum’s reading of the Gospel is powerful. She observes that the father is moved to celebrate his erring son’s return when he sees the young man at a distance, returning to his home. The verb describing the father’s emotion is esploinchristhe – a technical term that means "guts ripped out" or to be disemboweled. (The word originates in the language of religious sacrifice.) Nussbaum’s argument is that father rejoices at his son’s return in an absolutely visceral way – there is no thought, no transactional analysis, no quid pro quo exchange. The father doesn’t so much forgive his son as respond with unconditional joy to his son’s return. Nussbaum repeats this analysis and finds another powerfully illustrative example in her gloss on Philip Roth’s book American Pastoral. In that novel, a father, the Swede, learns that his daughter has committed a heinous crime, indeed, an act of terrorism that has killed several people. Echoing the diction of the gospel parable, Roth reports that someone tells the Swede that "if he had half a brain, he would have torn her out from his guts." The Swede is unable to estrange himself from his erring daughter and continues to provide her with care until her death.

Nussbaum studies problems of anger and forgiveness from many angles. Furthermore, she structures her book around different taxonomies of interrelatedness – that is, differing degrees of intimacy between wrongdoer and victim. This leads her to consider the problem in a theological context and, then, in the setting of an intimate relationship – that is, the relationship between lovers, husbands and wives, or children and parents. She assesses her core themes in the domain that she calls "the middle realm" – this is the workplace and other settings where trust and collegiality are necessary to success. One aspect of the so-called "middle realm" relates to criminality – harm done to people who are strangers or circumstances in which the nature of the offense triggers a response from the criminal justice system. Finally, Nussbaum analyzes questions involving anger and forgiveness in the political sphere – the paradigm for these cases involves harm inflicted in the name of higher principles on one group by another group. In that respect, she considers Gandhi’s struggles against the British in support of the liberation of India, Martin Luther King’s leadership of the Civil Rights Movement, and, finally, Nelson Mandela’s involvement in eliminating apartheid in South Africa.

Much of this is blithe, even expressed comically, with a modicum of humor. Nussbaum admits her pet peeves – for instance, "very large men" who are "much out of shape" hoisting her luggage into the storage bin when she travels by airplane. She cites a funny essay by Seneca about the inefficacy of anger in the "middle realm". In these sections in the book, Nussbaum shows a disposition of "lightheartedness and play" as prescribed to be beneficial by Aristotle – we should not take the vast majority of our grievances too seriously. Throughout the book, she counsels a future-oriented, forward-looking approach to offenses committed against us. She notes that Hegel defines tragedy as the "clash of right with right" – her note on this definition is invaluable however: if we know that the tragic has this complexion, then, we should take every measure prospectively to avoid situations or dilemmas where one group of rights clashes tragically with other rights that are of equal gravity and merit. One reason we read or watch tragedies is to observe the factors that led to those conflicts, analysis that may help us work to eliminate tragic situations before they occur.

Nussbaum’s comments on the criminal justice system, although neither profound nor original – in fact, there is very little that is original in her book (it’s more a citation of relevant authorities) – are entirely reasonable and well-taken. She properly denounces such things victim impact statements read in open court – such proceedings have the effect of privatizing justice and are a reactionary back door through which the notion of private revenge re-enters the criminal justice system. She deplores punitive measures in criminal justice and makes reasonable proposals for the elimination of outmoded theories of retribution in their application of to criminal offenders. (Nussbaum considers several theorists who have proposed retributive theories of criminal justice – if she has correctly summarized these arguments they are shockingly weak and without merit). In accord with her earlier book on shame, Hiding from Humanity, Nussbaum unequivocally rejects notions of criminal justice that rely upon shaming the offender – crime, she argues, must be viewed as the "bad act of an (inherently) good person"; any other model degrades the wrongdoer and induces destructive cycles of anger and revenge. All elements of society should, she argues, promote the utmost flourishing of human capability – in this assessment, she follows Spinoza, although she doesn’t cite him: Spinoza’s view is that a rational ethics promotes the maximum degree of freedom with respect to the exercise of all human faculties. Her assessment is that freedom requires that human capabilities not be curtailed and that they be encouraged in as wide a latitude as possible.

Throughout this argument, Nussbaum continuously weighs two paradigms for anger and forgiveness – there is the violence inflicted by Medea on her children as revenge for Jason’s cruelty (Medea’s only power is to kill her children. an act that is so extreme and inhuman as to be, by default, divine – she is conveyed into heaven by a chariot drawn by dragons) with the father’s forgiveness of his prodigal son in the Gospels. All ethical action must be contemplated ex ante – that is, to prevent avoidable future harms. In this connection, she cites a very profound passage by Nietzsche about mercy. The more stable, prosperous, and well-founded a society, the less it is imperilled by the violent actions of its deviants. Therefore, a prosperous and self-confident society can afford to ignore crime to some extent. It need not savagely punish all deviance because, in fact, that deviance is incapable of harming a successful society. "In this," Nietzsche declares, "(justice) ends, as does every good thing on earth, by overcoming itself. This self-overcoming of justice, one knows by the beautiful name it has given itself: mercy..." After this citation, Nussbaum inventories instances of unmotivated, apparently gratuitous goodness. In a footnote, she mentions Ashoka, the great Indian monarch from the 3^rd century BC. Ashoka was concerned to create a world in which both men and animals were well-treated: "let there blow no wind that wrecks the trees," he is reported to have said. Ashoka decreed that, along the highways in his realm, trees should be planted to shelter the road, banyans for shade, and mangoes for food and every nine miles a resting station for men and beasts. (Curiously, Nussbaum doesn’t mention the fact that Ashoka seems to have acted in reparation for his previous wars, some of which were genocidal in nature.) Nussbaum’s utopian argument is a little telegraphic here and, possibly, a bit naive – she seems to imply that if people have food, water, a place for shelter and rest, they will not commit crimes. In this respect, in accord with a weakness in Aristotle, she doesn’t give sufficient deference to the force of human perversity – the willingness to do wrong for its own sheer pleasure. Nussbaum has a sunny view of human nature: she sees evil as merely error and can’t really imagine that there are those who do wrong because their natures are perverse, because they have rebelled against the Good, and because they enjoy committing bad acts.



In the final substantive chapter in her book, Nussbaum considers social movements in which the oppressed rise up to seize rights that have been wrongfully denied them. Ultimately, she questions the efficacy of the moral example of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Curiously, she questions the moral authority of these leaders by comparing them unfavorably with Nelson Mandela. These arguments are challenging and deserve close consideration.

Gandhi equates non-violence with non-anger. Ultimately, his struggle for Satyagraha (Truth-Power) was one that involved self-overcoming. Gandhi’s discipline is too austere and ascetic to be practical for most people. Indeed, Nussbaum claims that his movement against the British was, ultimately, based on violence – albeit violence only inflicted against the self. Nussbaum, who doesn’t seem much enamored with contemporary psychology, here asserts a psychoanalytic argument that the formative impulse driving Gandhi was a kind of self-hatred. Gandhi was induced by his wife into making love to her while his father lay dying – as a result of his sexual passion, he was undutiful to his father. This failing, as Gandhi would describe it, tints his movement with elements of sanctity and masochistic guilt that compromise the broad application of his ideas to other conflicts. In reaching these conclusions, Nussbaum cites a wonderful aphorism by Oscar Wilde: "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent."

Nussbaum is more impressed by Martin Luther King’s non-violence. However, she notes that King always postured his movement in terms of Christian transcendence. This limits the appeal of his method, at least, with respect to those who are not believers. And Nussbaum is hunting big game – she wants a theory of justice and mercy that is not dependant upon metaphysical or spiritual belief. Both Gandhi and King operate within a framework of metaphysical belief, but Nelson Mandela, who emerges as the hero of the last quarter of her book, suggests a method that doesn’t require any transcendental warrant.

Mandela embodies Nussbaum’s concept that progress toward justice requires that the oppressed study their oppressors carefully, that they engage with them on the basis of friendship, and that the focus must be, not on past wrongs, but on building a future together. Nussbaum’s prescriptive advice in this context is not entirely persuasive. She doesn’t reject Gandhi and King’s spiritual and transcendental approach, but prefers Mandela’s stance of gently humorous, self-deprecating friendship with his captors and, later, the former oppressors of his people. Nussbaum clearly feels that her suggestions as to how peace and justice may be achieved (for her book is a self-help manual at the highest level) must be universal and, therefore, should not be dependant on any particular religious creed. But there is a problem with this analysis – more people are religious than possess the rare, even extraordinary, gifts of leadership that Nelson Mandela embodied. (Nussbaum also ignore Mandela’s own comment that he was raised as a Christian, a Methodist, and that this profoundly influenced his moral orientation.) Thus, Nussbaum’s secular emphasis runs the risk of requiring a secular saint, a personson the order of the Christ-like Nelson Mandela, to achieve its purposes. In my view, there are more religious people of good faith and steadfast virtue than there are men and women cut in the heroic mold of a Mandela.

Mandela was an excellent athlete, a top-flight amateur boxer, and born a member of the

Xhosa-speaking Thembu royal family, the scion of a clan of kings. Those who met him commented on his personal magnetism and well-nigh irresistable charisma. He was handsome and attractive to women – he seems to have been sexually active into his 80's. Mandela understood that he was imbued with royal blood, that he was a sovereign, and prince among men. He dressed carefully and cultivated the image of an English gentleman. He was brilliant, adept at languages, and interested in all kinds of subjects. Nussbaum recounts how he won the affection of his Afrikaaner guards by learning their language, interacting with them as friends, and, indeed, in the latter years of his imprisonment, calling them his "guard of honor." He was supremely confident in his own abilities and, although quick to anger, he was equally quick to forgive. Even in the midst of the most dire hardship, Mandela never lost sight of the fact that he was the son of kings, that he was, literally, of noble blood, and that no one could damage his royal status except himself.

These qualities are all noteworthy and make studying Mandela’s life and works inspirational. (Clint Eastwood thought this was true when he directed Invictus about Mandela’s involvement with the interracial world-champion South African rugby team – Mandela, as an athlete himself, was a sports fan; he recognized the truth that great athletes sometimes also have those qualities of charisma and nobility that characterized him. I have never known a superb athlete who lacked in self-confidence.) Although Nussbaum doesn’t use the word to describe Mandela, surely, he epitomized the quality of magnanimity – that is, literally "greatness of soul" – that the ancients found so important. He was ferociously loyal, tenacious, and courageous because he could not have expected anything less of a man of his noble lineage – above all, it seems he was unable to act shamefully. Furthermore, he could not be shamed. Nussbaum illustrates this proposition with an anecdote about Mandela washing slop buckets in the prison – even, while engaged in this task, he exuded an aura of pride and competency. Barth in his theological writing characterizes Jesus as the "sovereign man" – a person who can not be degraded or shamed and whose actions are always magnanimous. Mandela had this quality. But it is exceedingly rare. Most people have personality flaws or characteristics that would preclude them from acting with Mandela’s extraordinary grace. I understand the use that Nussbaum makes of Nelson Mandela in her book. However by positing the African leader as a model for overcoming anger and achieving justice through mercy, she runs the risk of making the possibility of such reconciliation exceedingly rare and unlikely.

A flaw in Nussbaum’s book is that it is very repetitious. Nussbaum is anxious to apply, and critically analyze, her ideas in the context of intimate relations, the workplace, the criminal justice system, and, ultimately, politically in the formulation of a just "beloved" society. Although she doesn’t use the slogan, she seems to insist that in large part the "political is personal" – the same qualities that avoid injustice in our private spheres of activity are applicable to the macrocosm. This seems persuasive to me, but the result is that Nussbaum makes the same essential argument over and over again, with only slight variations whether assessing conflict resolution between mothers and daughters, co-workers, or the Hutsis and Tutus in Rwanda.

Nonetheless, the book is generally a pleasure to read. Nussbaum enlivens her prose with examples from the arts. The book contains an interesting account of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country as well as, improbably, an exegesis of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony (his second symphony). She sees moral qualities in musical works, arguing that Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro is imbued with the quality of loving-kindness in every bar and note while Strauss’ Elektra embodies the ferocity of the vengeance-seeking Furies. This approach encourages the reader to consider other examples in the arts that may exist in dialogue with her themes. She admires Clint Eastwood’s Invictus – I would suggest that she also consider as pertinent to her ideas that director’s masterpiece, Unforgiven. Philip Glass’ opera on Gandhi, Satyagraha is also a notable work on this subject as are some of Glass’ later works, including his recent opera about Lee and Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Finally, I know of no film work that embodies concepts of mercy and forgiveness more exactly than Abbas Kiastoami’s movie about a case of fraud and its juridical implications, Close-Up.

Nussbaum’s ethics seem true and accurate to me because she doesn’t argue anything farfetched or exotic. Her carefully written and densely footnoted book ultimately reduces to several easy propositions: follow the Golden Rule and treat others as we would wish to be treated, anger is irrational and unproductive, focus on the future not the injustices of the past, and remember that love is always better than hate.